Latin American Film Festival Screenings to be Held Nov. 13 & 20

The college will hold two free film screenings as part of the 23rd Annual Latin American Film Festival, sponsored by Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

The screenings, along with related presentations, will take place Nov. 13 and Nov. 20, both at 7 p.m. in Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium, located in the Frank Family Science Center.

Friday, Nov. 13: EL AURA, Fabián Bielinski (Argentina, 2006) 134 min.

Espinoza is a shy taxidermist who secretly dreams of executing the perfect robbery. On his first ever hunting trip, in the calm of the Patagonian forest, his dreams become reality with one squeeze of the trigger. Espinoza accidentally kills a man who turns out to be a real criminal and inherits his scheme: the heist of an armored van carrying casino profits. Caught up in a world of complex new rules and frightening violence, Espinoza's lack of experience puts him in real danger. And he has another, more dangerous liability: he is an epileptic. Before each seizure he is visited by the ''aura'': a paradoxical moment of confusion and enlightenment where the past and future seem to blend. Spanish with English subtitles.

This film will be preceded by a brief lecture about tango dance, along with a performance and demonstration by Lorena Guillen and Alejandro Rutty. Kathryn Bowers, an assistant professor of foreign languages, will introduce the film.

Friday, Nov. 20: SLEEP DEALER, Alex Rivera (Mexico-USA, 2008) 90 min.

Sleep Dealer is a science fiction set in a world, not too unlike our own, in which a global, high-speed network ties distant people and places together. The story takes place among three characters who inhabit very different spaces in this world: a migrant, a soldier and a writer.Sleep Dealer won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Geoffrey Gilmore, the festival director, describes the movie as "a combination of The Matrix, Blade Runner and The Border." English and Spanish with subtitles.

Olivia Elias, assistant professor of Spanish, will introduce the film with a short talk about how it explores complex contemporary issues such as the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. A question-and-answer session will follow the screening.

The screenings are sponsored by the departments of foreign languages and international studies. For more information, call 316-2367.

The 23rd Annual Latin American Film Festival will present screenings of over 30 feature-length and short films in Greensboro, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. For more information about the film festival, visit its Web site at http://latinfilmfestivalnc.com/.

Nov. 2, 2009